I know that getting angry about it is pointless. Yet when your the one who is suppose to be able to eat this food TOO, it's hard not to be angry. I have a lot to learn about it, and how to help her the best. We are locking stuff up for now, but I know that is only a temporary fix. It is hard for me because I am not a foodie. It is hard to understand how you can offer a variety of healthy choices, only to see them eaten in a most unhealthy way. Too much of anything is a bad thing. RIght now, it is a 20 lb issue, and I don't want to see it become a 50. I can only have about 2 days worth of food in the house at one time. I can't have anything that even resembles junk. If we get chips, it is a small bag, with a sandwhich while we are out. I could not say bring a bag home, and dole it out appropriately because the first time I blink, it will be empty. Locking food up in my home seems so wrong. I feel like the food police, and after a childhood of eating issues, mine being not liking anything, I know that my Mom's forcing me to eat the way she did, only made it worse. How do you tell someone you love so much to please stop, please stop before you hurt your health as well as your ability to run and play. She is still a child, so I feel the weight and eating habits are under my responsibilities to set on a good course and it's so not going that way. IF I wasn't the food police, I don't know what would happen, and that scares me. I can't change the compulsion, I try to understand that it is like other ocd behaviors, and it will take loads of effort and time but if she doesn't care a bit, how is that going to happen? I tell her when I go in to the grocery store I see a bizillion things I want to eat too, but I know I can't, just because it's there doesn't mean it's right for everyone. WE have the Y, we have the park, we have physical things to redirect to. 50 percent of our issues are wrapped around food. She wants to be a cook, a pastry chef, which I think is a very obtainable goal, and would love to encourage it, but, not if it means seriously damaging your body long term. I am hoping that every other day or more at the y will help in some way. I am just clueless, and really weary of the struggle and the idea of this is just beginning.

__________________Go Petie GoGo Who Go!

love comes in many directions with mary

Side by side on the sofa sat three annoyed dogs and one smug catand then in came a little white kitten,

Is she involved with counseling? This may be an ideal question for them... I wish I knew.

I'm a compulsive eater and gum helps but only so much and only if its readily available. Chewing ice helps too. Overly filling proteins and fibers may help too. For me my worse obsession is chewy sugars like jelly beans, I cannot keep those in the house unless I plan to eat them in one sitting.

WE have a doctor, and a therapist, and I suppose we better be getting a nutritionist on board. I have been told it's the same thing as hoarding, only internally instead of externally. THat doens't really help me understand tho. My old boss use to tell me that any problem thoroughly understood is fairly simple, but that is what I can't get to, the understanding part. I don't know what to do with my own resentment too at the changes it makes in my own effort to store and prepare food. I am going to have to ask to have a door installed in the kitchen that can be locked, to go along with all the other things that get locked because at some point I have to sleep, or take a bath, or take the dog out. In past episodes she has made her self quite ill but that hasn't stopped it either. We do have treats, one nice one a day. There are snacks available, but in reasonable portions and she is allowed to make choices of her own at the store. There is 5 times a day when food is available, and that ought to be enough for anyone but it is still a maddening struggle.

__________________Go Petie GoGo Who Go!

love comes in many directions with mary

Side by side on the sofa sat three annoyed dogs and one smug catand then in came a little white kitten,

I was taught never to take the last of anything. Not to eat more than my fair share. Maybe that is why this goes down so wrong with me and I am having such a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that it is a compulsion, not a selfish act. This is my problem and I know it, I just don't know how to get around it so it doesn't make the whole business worse. I would like to have orange juice in the morning too...it makes you cranky and that is how I feel and it isnt' fair but it isn't fair for her either. No one would do this on purpose and that sometimes makes me cry. So I started this thread hoping for some insight from anyone who might be going through the same thing and knows where I am and maybe something I haven't thought of to make it better. I was told it would take a long time of hard work. I try to keep an open mind and I ask questions because there might be something out there that would help her see or help her not act in the moment.

__________________Go Petie GoGo Who Go!

love comes in many directions with mary

Side by side on the sofa sat three annoyed dogs and one smug catand then in came a little white kitten,

It does stress a lot of how it has to do with depression and self image issues, and that there are chemical causes. It also says that restricted diets can cause it to get worse because of the anxiety over not having access to food, so it sounds like a vicious cycle because you can't just let someone devour all the food in your house.

Maybe Mia's idea of keeping a big bowl of sunflower seeds out for her constantly would be helpful then. Then she could be on a restricted diet, but still have something available as she overcomes the other difficulties that are at the root of it all.

The article talks about doing other activities to increase dopamine output (because that's what the food is doing for her) so that it can gradually take the place of the food. Exercise would be fabulous for her. You say she wants to be a pastry chef? What if the two of you work together on some desserts, keep an agreed number of finished ones, and then go for a walk to deliver the rest to a neighbor or someone in need. Then she's getting the exercise, the joy of doing something she's interested in and loves, and the happiness that comes from doing service for others.

What may help is having some food accessible. I was going to suggest the same things as Romy and Renee - popcorn and sunflower seeds in their shells are relatively inexpensive, and they'll give her mouth something to do.